European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse , file a Quot Hirundo medicinal is Quot the Leech used in surgery gets to know its keeper. By Robert Kerr Scripps Howard news service f Hollywood retold the Story with Jack Nicholson As the surgeon when the Mother discovers him applying a Slimy Leech to her baby girl Nicholson might just Grin maniacally and Crow Quot they re a a a a ack Quot it s True those Squishy Black Brown Worms the veritable embodiment of ancient medical quackery Are not Only Back but absolutely respectable. In fact a Leech May someday save your life or at the least save some piece of you that you d rather not part with. In the future drugs derived from Leech saliva Are expected to Aid in treatment of heart disease arthritis glaucoma and other diseases. But at present leeches Are used to do what they do naturally suck blood. The treatment is painless and in recent years has been found to produce dramatic recovery in tissue transplants and limbs reattached after accidents. Still a Leech is the last thing a Mother expects from her child s doctor. Quot the moment the Mother walked in i was going toward her baby with that thing Quot said or. Mark Jobe the orthopaedic surgeon who reattached the tiny ring Finger of 18-month-old Daja Wallace s right hand two years ago at be Bonheur children s medical Center in Memphis Tenn. Quot i had the Leech in a pair of forceps a and it was wiggling around. I had to explain pretty quickly. The was a Little startled but after explained it to her she did t mind too Jobe said he made sure the Osceola ark., child never saw the leeches applied to her. She had sliced off her Finger on a broken window but has recovered completely. Leeches deserve some of the credit. The principle comes Down to a simple but deadly reality said or. George Burruss a plastic and reconstructive. Surgeon at Baptist memorial Hospital m Memphis who also has used leeches in a. Few cases. A a. Quot to keep something alive you have to get blood into it and you have to get blood out of it Quot Burruss said. A As recently As 15 to 20 years ago leeches had Little role in modern Medicine. But As the techniques of reconstructive surgery have become commonplace in recent years so has the use of leeches. In microsurgery to reattach severed appendages the arteries and a few veins Are sewed Back together under a Microscope with sutures the Width of a hair. Arteries deliver blood from the heart to appendages then veins carry blood Back out. A with relatively thick Walls arteries Are More easily sewn. But veins which May be less than a millimetre in diameter and have the consistency of wet Toile paper cannot always be reattached. Without veins to remove blood the appendage will turn purple and die within Days. V a Leech can help maintain circulation until veins re establish themselves. It around 30 minutes then leaves a natural anticoagulant that maintains a slow steady bleeding for hours More effectively than. Pharmaceutical anticoagulants in such cases. Quot a a a a a a Only one Leech species Hirundo medicinal is out of some 650 can be used for such purposes. But it is so Well established in medical treatment today that All it takes is a Call to a 24-hour number and the leeches needed will arrive by courier within hours. Jobe and Burruss get their leeches from a Westbury n.y., company with the straightforward name of leeches . It supplied hospitals and surgeons with More than 10,000 medicinal leeches at $6 each last year. Michael Pierce 22, of Cooter mo., believes leeches saved his thumb. It was torn Loose in january when he caught it in a Chain on a Hydraulic lift at the grocery store where he was working As assistant manager. A team headed by or. George Wood an orthopaedic surgeon at Campbell clinic reattached the thumb. However circulation was so poor at first Pierce said that doctors were considering amputating the thumb just before the leeches went to work. Quot my wife and i watched them the leeches and took pictures of them a Bunch of nurses came in to watch because they did t believe it. You could see it his thumb getting better after the first time Quot said Pierce. "1 had heard on the radio where they had used leeches on a Guy s ear somewhere when they reattached it. I told my wife i Don t believe it. That s crazy then two weeks later they Are on the end of my a close Brush with Fame this being the age of inquiring minds readers probably want to know if leeches were used in the most famous appendage reattach ment in history. The answer is almost. A John Wayne Bobbitt s Penis suffered Many indignities last summer but Leech therapy was not i among them. A team of hungry leeches was kept on Call though. Doctors were prepared to use leeches during the june operation to reattach Bobbitt s Penis after his wife severed it. But they were not needed according to the plastic surgeon who led the microsurgery a Robert Kerr to your health memory toss Normal the widespread belief that aging is the main reason people lose their memories May not be totally accurate physicians at the Lahey clinic of Burlington mass., suggest. In a newsletter last month the clinic Points out research that indicates memory loss can be caused by stress chronic illnesses mental depression Vitamin deficiencies and medications a notably heart drugs and sleeping pills. What seems to be happening the Lahey study said is Middle aged and elderly people suffer memory loss because they re suffering several memory debilitating conditions. Thus advancing age is Only part of the reason the Middle aged and elderly become absent minded and forgetful americans should realize memory loss is Normal and not a sign of alzheimer a disease the newsletter added. It advised readers to remember this Rule if you re worried about your memory you probably have nothing to worry about since people who have alzheimer s generally done to know they re losing their free dentistry a new method of filling cavities eliminates drilling and pain that patients associate with trips to the dentist says the world health organization. In a method developed at Groningen University in the Netherlands a dentist amps John Bomor the Drill is gone for some dental patients. Out cavities and fills them with a Glass compound that releases fluoride diminishing the Chance of new cavities. Dentists applying the new method done to need electricity or water. And As no drilling is required the method is painless. A a it a especially Good for schoolchildren where you Start with Small cavities a said project director Taco Pilot of Groningen however the Glass Cement was t useful for Large cavities or for cavities that had destroyed the Wall of the tooth he and dark skin done to believe the old saw that says dark skinned people Don t get sunburned. Truth is the suns rays Are especially harmful to people with dark skin says or. Ted Rosen of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Sunburn is very difficult to detect in dark skinned people Rosen said and its not detectable at All in the Early stages so that when a Burn occurs its bad. So he advises if you re Black or brow skinned done to ignore the Sun this summer. Use a Sun screen. A from wire reports tuesday May 24, 1994 the stars and stripes 15
